#YouthMonth | Walk in the footsteps of SA schoolchildren and get them school shoes

(Image supplied)

This forms part of a campaign that is a collective effort from Happy Friday Creative (Creative team: Jonathan Wolberg, Fu’aad Kasu, and Shannon Miller), and Retroviral, Run Jump Fly.

A school shoe is a symbol and signal of dignity. During Youth Month, Liberty Group South Africa has provided 10s of 1,000s school shoes to these learners - for many, their first pair of school shoes.

Of roughly 17 million schoolchildren in the country, about 10.1 million walk to their schools daily. An estimated seven million children in South Africa have never owned a pair of school shoes.

While not all of them walk to school entirely barefoot, millions of impoverished learners - especially in rural areas - make this long commute without proper footwear

The Liberty CSI Winter Shoe Drive is an employee volunteerism programme, where employees pledge money from their own pockets to purchase school shoes, and Liberty matches the number of shoes pledged equally.

The programme was launched in 2017, and to date, more than 100 000 pairs of school shoes have been donated to learners across the country.

But there are millions more who need shoes.

As simple observation

Happy Friday's ECD, Jonathan Wolberg explains that the idea started when they as Liberty’s trade marketing agency, became aware of the incredible work the business had been doing through its CSI Winter Shoe Drive for almost a decade — not for headlines, but to make a real difference.

"We felt it was a story more people needed to know.

"From there came a simple visual observation: the cracked textures and aerial views of rural landscapes look remarkably similar to the soles of school-kids’ feet damaged by walking long distances without shoes.

"We used that connection to tell the stories of children who had received school shoes through the initiative."

He explains that the saying, “To truly understand someone, you need to walk in their shoes,” sparked the next step.

"We wanted South Africans to do more than like, comment or share. So, we created a way for them to take tangible and literal steps towards the cause, with every kilometre walked resulting in a pair of school shoes being pledged."

A collective effort from a creative spark

Wolberg says that what started as a creative spark became unignorable.

"So with our client service team helping drive it forward, it grew into a collective effort with Retroviral leading PR, Lucky Hustle bringing the story to life through video content, Run Jump Fly doing the back-end tech and David Prior capturing it through photography. A massive shout-out to them and the incredibly passionate team at Liberty."

Darren Morris. Lucky Hustle, the production company involved, says,“Lucky Hustle was honoured to be asked to be a part of this campaign. When we first saw the creative idea, our jaws dropped. Shilo, our film director, said: "Damn, that's genius, we're in".

Mike Sharman, Retroviral, says that when Craig Naicker, co-CEO at Happy Friday and Jonathan Wolberg, executive creative director at Happy Friday, approached him with the idea, he was immediately on board.

Real feet

The campaign visuals - real feet that walk kilometres every day on dusty, broken rural roads- were shot by award-winning photographer, David Prior.

"A simple pair of shoes can bring comfort, confidence, and dignity, and I'm proud to have been part of a campaign that shines a light on such an important cause. It was a privilege to work alongside such a talented creative team to help share this message," says Prior.

Meaningful work

Wolberg adds, “It’s always a happy day for Happy Friday when we get to do meaningful work.

"Liberty’s Winter Shoe Drive is an incredible initiative, and as one of their agency partners committed to doing radically original work, we’re thrilled to finally share this campaign.

"Most importantly, we’re proud to be part of an initiative that is helping kids across South Africa attend school with the dignity they deserve.”